How Uber conquered London
Meh.
Its really not. Uber isn't actually a new idea in london, we've had app bookable minicabs for a long time, through addison lee(and others).
Now, Addison Lee are almost as odious to their staff as Uber are. However the genius of AL is the finance agreement between the drivers and the company. The company lease you a car, and you have the option to work when ever you want. But you have to get booking through their master system. and it only costs you 25% of each fair. Plus the ÂŁ300 a week rental of the branded vehicle.
This means that the have 100% control of their employees, and if a driver under performs, they are still liable for rental of the Addison Lee branded car.
As a business model its awesome. As a moral proposition its pretty shitty. Drivers are contractors, liable for inflated costs and because they have no employment rights are forced to work round the clock to break even.
Uber just goes one step further cutting overheads and offloading risk onto the user instead. Car not road worthy? just 1-star it! got raped by the driver? just 1-star it! got kicked off because your disabled? just 1-star it (but don't do it too often, remember in uber's Randian vision, its your fault for being weak and holding back the strong.)
Fortunately the minicab rules are quite comprehensive in london: you need to have a clean record, ID, and a road worthy car. Anything less and its finesville and jail for you.
Most people I know tried uber and moved back to more reliable black cabs and minicabs in London. Uber often seems to have 'ghost cars' on the map - never seem to be real or reachable - maybe trying to inflate the perception of availability of cars?
The large number of drivers who refuse dogs, especially guide dogs for registered blind people is appalling.
The London transport regulator wanted to bring uber under reasonable regulation, uber bugged their users to go and annoy the regulator to back off.
> George Galloway, who is now a leftwing mayoral candidate, came and addressed the room. “What does Uber give you except grief?” he asked. “Because we know what you give Uber, which are profits that are beyond the dreams of avarice.” When Galloway left, I followed him out. Parked close around the hall, there were Toyota Priuses and Mercedes E Classes, their private hire stickers showing in their rear windscreens. I opened my app. The screen showed empty streets where those cars should have been. But I didn’t have to worry. A vehicle came into view. My Uber was two minutes away.
Submarine advertising strikes again?
What I find interesting is the sheer size of the taxi industry (Uber included) given the costs involved. I'm guessing it's some sort of socioeconomic group thing. Hardly anyone I know takes taxis of any kind in London.
For personal use, they're just so astonishingly expensive that it's difficult to justify them. As far as I can remember I've used Uber once, to get home after missing the last public transport, and I had to really consider whether it was worth just finding something to do for a few hours until the 5am train.
I live <1h from Central London via train. The fare for that is ~3GBP off peak or 5GBP peak. An Uber costs an order of magnitude more (~30-40GBP).
It would be an extremely notable expense in my budget - probably the largest single item.
I think I'd have to have a home paid off and a fairly high salary before a taxi became anything other than a frivolous luxury, to be honest.
(Business use is excepted here. I've used taxis plenty in my professional life. Uber as a platform doesn't seem focused on business travel, though.)
London has definitely not been conquered by Uber. YMMV, but I've had nothing but bad experiences in London (multiple driver cancellations, slow pickup times, etc.) especially compared with Paris and many cities in the US.
What I found interesting about this is how they created a system where taxis can become cheaper and drivers can earn more at the same time as their idle time is reduced.
Also, at the same time, it is very illustrative for how humans (in this case, drivers) really don't matter very much in such systems. As the one guy says, "Uber don’t see drivers as humans". In that way, it looks they are just one step away from driverless cars.
I just walked past a long row of diesel cabs, sitting with engines idling, waiting for fares at Canary Wharf. They sit there all day pumping out noxious fumes. I'd much rather see the efficiently-allocated modern hybrid vehicles of Uber.
Taxis aren't dying nearly fast enough in London
What Uber means by "liquidity" is lots of drivers competing to be available to Uber. Not lots of apps competing for drivers.
Incidentally, the screen Uber shows at startup with many vehicles near your current location has nothing to do with actual vehicle positions. That's just a screen saver.[1]
I'm surprised it doesn't mention the referral system. Pretty much every Londoner I know in their early twenties who uses Uber was given an initial ÂŁ10/20 (can't remember exactly how much) to spend if they referred a friend. I remember thinking at the time how much money this must cost but it clearly worked, everyone who had it was looking to give their uber code away to someone new so you could travel in luxury for free.
Whether it's true or not, you realize this article is purely driven by Uber PR, right?
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Someone should link this article to David Fincher!